The Cowboys’ biggest defensive flaw that Mike McCarthy needs to fix

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Riding a five-game winning streak and fresh off a victory against the reigning NFC champions, life in Big D is as good as we’ve seen in quite some time.

The Dallas Cowboys are in control of the NFC East, and by running the table between now and the end of the regular season, they would earn a first-round bye for the first time since 2016.

With the fourth-best offense and the #3 ranked defense, head coach Mike McCarthy cannot have too many complaints.

In all three facets of the game, the Cowboys have a legitimate superstar and, in some cases, a few.

With so much momentum on their side, the last thing you want to do is mess with a good thing.

To get into the Super Bowl conversation though some things need tweaking.

When the Cowboys’ Defense Bends, they Break

One of football’s most common defensive analogies is bend, but don’t break.

In the case of the Cowboys, on the rare occasions their defense is bent, they seem to break.

For as good as Dan Quinn’s group has been this season, they’ve struggled to hold down the fort when pinned deep into their own area of the field.

If there’s an Achilles’ heel on the Cowboys’ defensive front, it would be their play in the red zone.

When in that area of the field, the Cowboys’ opponents have found the end zone 58.8% of the time, putting Dallas 22nd in the NFL.

That’s surprising, seeing as the Cowboys have the second-most sacks in the NFC (39), just one fewer than the San Francisco 49ers.

Also, Dallas boasts the league leader for quarterback pressures (78) and quarterback pressure rate for players with at least 250 pass-rush snaps (20.3%) in Micah Parsons.

Meanwhile, in the secondary, there’s the NFL’s leader for interceptions, DaRon Bland (eight) and a former Defensive Player of the Year, Stephon Gilmore.

Furthermore, they’ve given up the fourth-fewest points per game in the NFL (17.9).

So why is it so easy for the opposition to score on them in the red zone?

Letting the opposition run free

When you’re on the kind of roll that Dallas is on right now, you have to nit-pick to find issues.

Undoubtedly, they need to allow fewer touchdowns in the red zone, and that means doing a better job at stopping the run.

Defensively, this group is not terrible in that department, but there is room for improvement.

According to the NFL team stats, the Cowboys rank 13th versus the run, conceding 4.1 yards per carry.

In 2023, they’ve allowed 10 touchdowns on the ground, slightly above average when compared to most teams in the NFL.

On Sunday in Buffalo, the Cowboy’s defense will face one of the best teams in the red zone.

When the Bills march into that territory, it’s a good bet they’re coming away with points, scoring on 75% of their red zone drives, the second-best ratio in the league.